PTI

Mumbai, June 29

Very few individuals would have thought earlier than the 2019 Assembly elections that Uddhav Thackeray had it in him to sever the ties with the outdated ally BJP, and grow to be chief minister of Maharashtra as the top of an unlikely coalition with the NCP and Congress.

Two and a half years later, 62-year-old Thackeray’s innings as chief minister got here to an finish after Eknath Shinde, a senior Shiv Sena chief, rebelled towards him and a majority of Sena MLAs joined the insurgent camp.

 “Whatever I do, whether I desire it or not…. I do it with determination,” Thackeray had stated throughout his Facebook Live on June 22.

This willpower has been a continuing all by his political profession that noticed Shiv Sena witnessing ups and downs since he first took over because the appearing president and occasion chief after his father Bal Thackeray’s dying in 2012.

The youngest son of Bal Thackeray, Uddhav, also referred to as ‘Digga’, began serving to his father within the occasion affairs within the early Nineteen Nineties.

A soft-spoken and quiet politician, he was elevated to the submit of govt occasion president in 2001 over his youthful cousin Raj Thackeray, thought-about to be extra charismatic. 

This elevation led to splits within the occasion.  Senior chief and former chief minister Narayan Rane give up in 2005, adopted by Raj.  But by these storms, the Shiv Sena managed to win the essential Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and Thane Municipal Corporation elections in 2002, 2007, 2012 and 2017.

When Bal Thackeray died in 2012, many occasion critics predicted that this is able to be the top of the Sena. But Uddhav Thackeray managed to carry the occasion collectively, and likewise led its transformation right into a mature political outfit from its earlier avatar as a celebration of avenue fighters.

Known as an ace wildlife photographer, he additionally dabbled in aerial pictures. Some footage of forts in Maharashtra, taken by him, adorn the partitions of the New Maharashtra Sadan in Delhi.

In 2014, when the Shiv Sena and BJP parted methods to contest polls independently, Thackeray spearheaded his occasion’s marketing campaign to emerge because the second largest occasion within the state meeting after the BJP. But later the Shiv Sena once more joined arms with the BJP as latter fashioned authorities.

In 2019, the 2 events cut up over the submit of chief minister and the Shiv Sena joined arms with the Congress and the NCP.

Thackeray grew to become chief minister of this tri-partite alliance, which many predicted will come aside very quickly. Thackeray was additionally the primary from the household to have occupied any public workplace. 

 His management in the course of the worst phases of the coronavirus pandemic got here in for reward. But a bit of Shiv Sena leaders complained that he was inaccessible as occasion president and CM.

Several Sena leaders have been additionally uncomfortable with the occasion’s alliance with arch-foes Congress and NCP, which ultimately proved to be the alliance’s undoing.

Thackeray not too long ago stated he was by no means eager on changing into chief minister.

“I told Pawar saheb (NCP chief Sharad Pawar)…I go to the BMC for congratulating the mayor (after the mayoral election). How can I become the chief minister,” he stated in the course of the Facebook Live on June 22, a day after Shinde’s revolt broke out.

It will probably be attention-grabbing to see if Thackeray now succeeds in reviving the fortunes of his weakened occasion.